Flexible Cold War Chess Board

President Obama whispered in Dmitri Medvedev’s ear that, after the 2012 election, he could be flexible.

In the final 2012 presidential debate Mitt Romney called Russia our greatest geopolitical threat. Obama mocked him by saying “the 1980’s is calling for its foreign policy back because, you know, the cold war’s been over for 20 years”. Looks like the 1800’s are on line 2. John Kerry’s response to Putin’s invasion of Crimea was that it was a “19th century act in the 21st century”. Light Brigade, report for duty.

The president still insists this isn’t about some “cold war chessboard“. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers thinks it is, “Putin’s playing chess and we’re playing marbles”.

The Washington Post editorial page thinks President Obama has lost his marbles. It says his “foreign policy is based on fantasy”:

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces.

Speaking of how he thinks the world should operate, Obama commended the Ukrainian government for its “restraint” during the current unpleasantness. To which Bret Stephens responded in the WSJ:

The Ukrainian government isn’t showing restraint; it is merely tragically impotent in the face of blunt aggression.. It used to be that defiance, not restraint, was considered the appropriate response to a foreign invasion”.

Flexible Critics

This is all a little much for Dana Milbank, also in the Post. He wants to know how Obama can be such a power grabbing, constitution shredding tyrant at home and a flexible weakling on the international stage.

I think he has a point. I should have drawn the Flexible One wearing his crown.